In “Sisters”, Vancouver’s Maria Munro honours the life of her long-lost sibling
The filmmaker’s directorial debut, screening at the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival, traces her personal journey to unite with a sister she never knew existed
A still from “Sisters”.
The Vancouver Latin American Film Festival presents “Sisters” as part of the Local Perspectives short-film program at The Cinematheque on September 14 at 6:15 pm
A FAINT WHISPER, perhaps the universe, interrupted the silence of meditation: “You have a sister,” it said.
Maria Munro was at a loss. As the youngest of four siblings, she knew she had an older sister. But the voice was persistent, and faced with the possibility of a forgotten memory, she started her search for answers. What she found was the existence of Cecilia, a half-sister who had lived her entire life hidden from the family.
Ross and Maria Munro
That discovery forms the basis of “Sisters”, the Venezuelan-born, Vancouver-based filmmaker’s directorial debut, screening at this year’s Vancouver Latin American Film Festival as part of the Local Perspectives short-film program. The 24-minute documentary short follows Munro as she pieces together Cecilia’s story and reflects on the close bond formed between them, all the while confronting long-held beliefs about her own upbringing. Her journey eventually leads her to her hometown of Caracas in hopes of meeting Cecilia for the first time in person.
“For me, the discovery of Cecilia was so mind-blowing that I thought, ‘Oh my god, I need to document this somehow,’” Munro tells Stir over Zoom. “When she passed, I wanted to make this documentary short in her honour and let her know that her life mattered.”
For more than a decade, Munro has produced films while her husband and creative partner, Ross Munro, directed. On “Sisters”, the duo switches roles, with Maria directing and narrating her story throughout the film—a decision that Ross Munro wholeheartedly supported from the beginning. “I thought it was very important that she direct this,” he says. “Even when she was thinking initially to maybe find someone to do the voice-over, I really encouraged her. I said, ‘It needs your voice to be that personal narrator that’s guiding everybody through your story.’”
The process itself took nearly two years of sorting through extensive archival materials. They reviewed family albums, photographs, and videos taken during their trip to Venezuela, messages and voice recordings shared between the sisters. Original animations, stock footage, and recreated conversations with other family members filled in any remaining gaps.
Beyond the technical aspects of filmmaking, the story’s emotional weight extended the work’s development. In addition to Cecilia’s passing, the process of creating this project required Maria Munro to reckon with her family’s complicated past, including her relationship with her father, who passed away when she was young. “I came to the realization that he was absent from my life as well,” she explains. “And that hit hard because it came into my face like ‘Wow,’ and I also started missing him. It was a little painful, but I think it was healing to go back into the family history.”
A vulnerable exploration of love, connection, and identity, “Sisters” invites viewers to reconsider their own family histories with courage and compassion. “We’re hoping the film would have that impact where people would just think really deeply about family situations, family dynamics, and relationships,” Ross Munro adds. “We’ve had people that we don’t even know, after a screening, come up to us and talk about how the film spoke to their personal situations.”
As for Maria, she hopes her story can give someone else the confidence to follow their intuition. “When you have the urgency to reach out to someone for whatever reason, just do it,” she says. “Pay attention to those instincts that come quietly because they are telling you something important.”
Looking back at the work in its entirety, one moment remains engrained in Maria’s mind: hearing Cecilia’s recorded voice thanking her for accepting her as a sister. “I can hear the voice, she’s very emotional, and for me, it’s rewarding to know that we connected,” she says. 
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